Magnetic disk drive with air bearing surface design for data area expansion

Abstract

Embodiment of the invention provides a magnetic disk drive that may suppress the decrease of a recording region by preventing a magnetic head slider from abutting a magnetic disk at the time of loading, and suppress the degradation of the flying characteristics. In one embodiment a magnetic disk drive of the present invention is provided with a magnetic head slider including a magnetic transducer, a ramp that unloads the magnetic head slider, and an actuator that moves the magnetic head slider. The magnetic head slider includes a rail surface that generates a positive pressure on an air-bearing surface, a step bearing surface, and a taper section that is formed to a slider corner section that is brought closest to the surface of a recording disk at the time of loading with a space from the rail surface and the step bearing surface.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. JP2005-306462, filed Oct. 20, 2005, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to a magnetic disk drive and, more specifically, to the configuration of a magnetic disk device provided with a head slider for data recording / reproduction to / from a magnetic disk. [0003] As a data storage device, known is a device of using various types of media, e.g., optical disks, magnetic tapes, and others. Among these, a hard disk drive (HDD) being a magnetic disk drive is widely popular as a storage device for a computer device, and is one of the storage devices that are essential for existing computer systems. Moreover, the application of the HDD goes beyond the computer systems, and is increasing more and more because of its excellent characteristics, e.g., recording and reproduction device o...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] The present invention is proposed in consideration of such problems, and to suppress the decrease of a recording region by preventing a magnetic head slider from abutting a magnetic disk at the time of loading while suppressing the degradation of the flying characteristics.

[0012] A magnetic disk drive of the present invention is provided with a magnetic head slider including a magnetic transducer that accesses a recording region of a recording disk; a ramp that unloads the magnetic head slider from the magnetic disk; and an actuator that includes a suspension for supporting the magnetic head slider, and loads / unloads the magnetic head slider to / from the ramp. The magnetic head slider includes: a rear pad having an outflow-side rail surface at a center portion on an air outflow end side of an air bearing surface facing the recording disk; a front pad that extends to a recording disk innermost side and a recording disk outermost side on the air bearing surface, and has a side rail surface on the air outflow end side; and a first taper section that is formed to a first corner of corners vertical to the air bearing surface on the air outflow end side by trimming a predetermined area of an extension region that is an extension portion having the maximum width of the side rail surface extended to the air outflow end. In such a magnetic disk drive, by forming the taper section in a predetermined range, the flying characteristics may be prevented from being degraded, and the magnetic head slider is prevented from abutting the magnetic disk at the time of loading so that it becomes possible to preclude the reduction of the recording region.

[0013] In the above magnetic disk drive, the area of trimming the first corner may be the area covering less than 70% of the extension region. Further, in the above magnetic disk drive, the area of trimming the first corner may be the area covering almost 45% of the extension region. Still further, in the above magnetic disk drive, the area of trimming the first corner may be the area covering less than 30% of the extension region. Such configurations enable to effectively prevent the flying characteristics of the magnetic head slider from being degraded.

Problems solved by technology

That is, the region in the vicinity of the abutment section 920 is not suitable for data recording, thereby resulting in a decrease of the recording region.

For the purpose of preventing a magnetic head slider from abutting a magnetic disk, as in the aforementioned Patent Documents, if the magnetic head slider is changed in shape in a considerable degree or if the ABS surface or the air outflow end is trimmed to a significant degree, a problem arises that the flying characteristics suffer thereby.

However, the size reduction of the slider is recently getting active, and if the slider is changed in shape including the ABS surface and the air outflow end, a small-sized slider such as femto slider will be considerably affected especially in terms of the flying characteristics.

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